Funding to universities by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, commonly known as the Hewlett Foundation, is a private foundation, established by the Hewlett-Packard co-founder William Hewlett and his wife in 1966. With assets of approximately $11 billion at the 31 December 2019, Hewlett is one of the wealthiest grant makers in the United States. In 2019, the foundation awarded $454,458,000 in grants.

The Foundation has grant-making programs in education, the environment, global development and population, the performing arts, and philanthropy. The Hewlett Foundation is notable for Its longstanding commitment to support and promote open education and distance learning and in April 2020 launched its open education grant-making strategy.

• The Hewlett Foundation has awarded 606 grants amounting to $214.1m in funding to 65 universities in 18 countries in the past decade. The median average grant award is $250,000.

• 35 out of the 65 university recipients are US institutions, which received around $133.8m (62% of all Hewlett Foundation university funding).

• North America is the biggest regional recipient. 41 universities in the US and Canada received $147.3m.

• African universities are the second biggest regional recipients. Eight universities in five countries – Burkina Faso, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda – received $42.5m over the past decade.

• The top five country beneficiaries of Hewlett funding are:

  • US ($133.8m)

  • South Africa ($24.0m)

  • Canada ($13.5m)

  • United Kingdom ($13.1m)

  • China ($4.4m)

• The biggest grant award the Hewlett Foundation has made in the past decade is $2m. Seven such awards were made to five universities, four in the US (Berkeley, John Hopkins, MIT and Yale); and one to the Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar in Senegal.

• The funding went to programmes that focused on education, rule of law, good governance and family planning.

• The top five university beneficiaries of Hewlett funding are:

• MIT ($22.4m) – primarily for governance related-research

• Berkeley ($13.7m) – primarily for international social science research, including governance programmes

• Stanford ($11.2m) – social sciences including the Hoover Institute’s “World Free of Nuclear Weapons” initiative

• Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar ($10.9m) – programme in assessing the quality of education and learning in Senegal

• Ontario College of Art & Design ($10.0m) – online and remote learning initiatives

• The top five non-US university beneficiaries of Hewlett funding are:

  • Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, Senegal ($10.9m)

  • Ontario College of Art & Design, Canada ($10.0m)

  • Open University, UK ($9.2m)

  • University of Cape Town, South Africa ($8.8m)

  • University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa ($7.5m)